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Religion in the Australian Census

Following up on my earlier post, here is a chart of religion in Australia, by age (as per the 2016 Census, with percentages on the vertical axis relating to the population of Australia as a whole, and excluding people with no religion specified). Coloured areas in this chart indicate the total number of people for each religious group:

The changing religious landscape is revealed by the variation with age. For people aged 65, the population is 25% Catholic, 24% secular, 22% Anglican, 16% other Christian, 7% Uniting Church, 2% Buddhist, 1% other religion, 1% Muslim, and 1% Hindu.

Immigration and children are keeping the Catholic Church stable in size, but the Uniting Church is in collapse, and the Anglican Church is not doing much better (other data suggests that it’s in collapse outside of Sydney). The “big three” non-Christian religions (Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) are more than 10% of the age-25 demographic. The chart also shows the impact of student-driven Indian immigration to Australia over the past decade or so – there is a visible peak for Hinduism around age 33.

There seems to be something odd about the religion given for young children up to age 13 or so – some parents (especially Catholics) seem to be listing young children as “no religion.” This might reflect delayed baptism. However, it also seems that many children lose their childhood religion in late teens and early adulthood.

Mean ages for adults within the different groups are Hindu: 37.1, Muslim: 37.7, secular: 42, other religion: 42.6, Buddhist: 43.5, Catholic: 48.6, other Christian: 50.4, Anglican: 54.8, and Uniting Church: 55.8. The last two groups in particular are skewed towards older people.